5 Differences I Didn’t Expect, Between Baby Boys and Baby Girls

This post came out of a writing prompt I decided to follow, regarding the differences between boys and girls. As someone who tries not to focus on those differences, it was an interesting journey to take, psychologically speaking. Here’s what I wrote:

When I had my daughter, I was absolutely positive that “Nurture” was responsible for all the girly things that girls ended up doing and preferring. I went about buying gender-neutral toys wherever possible, and I encouraged her to try out activities that could be interpreted as further toward the male side of the spectrum. She had toy cars, and hammer and peg sets, among other things. I thought she did pretty well.

Then I had a son.

And that’s when I saw just how much power “Nature” actually had, in forming their minds and their preferences. I’m not saying boys only like cars and girls only like dolls; far from it. But there are definitely tendencies toward different behaviours in each gender.

1. Boys like to make things into tools.
Starting from the time my son could hold things, he would use one toy to hit another, or use a toy move something else. He was hammering and playing hockey before he could crawl. My daughter? It took her more than a year to figure out how to hammer with an actual hammer. She would just push large wooden posts through with her fingers, rather than use another object.
2. Boys like to grab their junk, girls not so much. I never would have believed it, if I hadn’t seen it myself. My daughter would sometimes grab her bum as she was being changed, but she wasn’t much interested in anything else down there. My son? HA. He figured out where things were at pretty damn quick. Now it’s a race for me to get the wipes going before his hand is in there. Thankfully, he hasn’t yet come to the realization that he can stick his hand down his diaper and continue this fun game, once I put it on, but it’s only a matter of time.
3. Girls love to sit and read, boys love to do. I could sit my daughter down in front of a pile of books and walk away, knowing she would amuse herself for a good chunk of time, looking through them all. My son? Not so much. He loves it when I read a story to him, sure, but he’d prefer to eat all those books, rather than look at them. But give him a box of cars and he’s happy as a clam.
4. Boys love machines, girls couldn’t care less. I used to take my daughter on walks through our neighbourhood, before she learned to talk, and point out various objects and name them, trying to get her to start using the words. I think I pointed out about 4000 cars, but she did not give a single shit about any of those cars. My son? Totally entranced by all the delivery trucks, garbage trucks and just normal cars that drive by our house.
5. Girls are chatty. There’s a reason girls are known to talk earlier than boys. I’m not exactly sure what that reason is, but I can attest to it being true. While both of my kids were saying single words by about 9 months of age, my daughter was talking up a storm by 1 year old, and my son is still just saying occasional single words, as he closes in on the 1 year mark.

These differences may not exist for everyone, and I certainly wouldn’t have believed they’d be true for my own kids, but I’m a believer now. HOWEVER! I will continue to encourage my daughter to play with the tool set we bought her, make sure my son learns how to throw a tea party, and hope my kids keep fighting over both the kitchen toys AND the train set pieces.

~g

What about you? If you have one of each gender, have you noticed a big difference between the two? Tell me in the comments!

20 thoughts on “5 Differences I Didn’t Expect, Between Baby Boys and Baby Girls

  1. jsackmom says:

    I can relate to a lot of these observations. I only have son’s but I have friends that have both. I’m a happy people watcher and I’ve seen all the differences you speak of in detail. Both my son’s were speech delayed while their female friends were reciting Dora the Explorer and teaching them to count to ten in Spanish. But if these girls wanted to learn anything and everything about what made cars go, how to make a toy crane work, or how to turn a box into a race car my son’s were leading the pack. I loved this it made me think about all those wonderful differences between the opposite sex. Yet they all enjoyed their play dates so is Mom’s learned something new from each of our kids. 😊

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  2. Nellemarie says:

    Yes, YES and YES!!!! Evan watched construction vehicles for 30 minutes at a time at 18 months, and taught ME all the names of Heavy Equipment. Julia couldn’t careless about vehicles, but could sit and “read” books or colour for AGES around the same age. And she likes pink, despite my attention to dress her and her brothers decidedly not pink hand me downs. But then again, her cousins could have been the gender influence in her life, not her mother or Grandma or Nana. Who knows. But there has got to be a difference from nature. And yes, Jules still plays hockey and is encouraged to take risks, and Evan excels verbally and is my emotional cuddle bear, but that unique blend of characters optics is what makes the world such an interesting place! Oh, and may I recommend Goldie Blocks, the engineering game targeted at girls by encorporarinf reading, a story and of course pastel colours??? Whatever works to encourage my kids to develop a rounded set of skills!

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  3. Toddler_Mama says:

    I’d be curious what your experience would be like with two girls, or two boys. I only have one daughter who I too feel falls on the more masculine side of things, but my sister has two girls who couldn’t be more different, one being VERY feminine and the other being more tom-boyish . Very funny how these things all work out. Tough thing to write about, and interesting to think about.

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    • Glynis says:

      Yeah, it’s funny; I had always considered my girl to be a bit more tomboy-ish…until my son came along! It would have been interesting to see where things ended up, if I had had another girl. We do have my teenage stepdaughter, who is very similar to my biological daughter in being a little bit girly but not SUPER girly…but I never saw her as a baby, so I don’t have a way of comparing.
      Thanks for your thoughts!

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  4. sandy says:

    See I don’t know if I would attribute these differences because of their gender, they are just different kids. My daughter loves cars and trucks and goes nuts for construction vehicles BUT also loves princesses. I like you leaned toward the more gender neutral toys but the kids end up liking what they like. Btw love reading all these blogs :).

    Liked by 1 person

    • Glynis says:

      Yeah, it’s really hard to say for sure! My daughter does love playing with trains and cars too, but like I said, there are some striking differences when I see how my son plays. But who can say? 🙂 thanks for reading!!

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  5. Ally B. Jones says:

    Really interesting! I think between me and my brother I can concur with these observations. I should warn you though If placed in the grass both genders will tend to eat dirt…..just saying…

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